If you’re trying to lose weight, work on your fitness, or eat better, your iPhone can be a helpful tool — but only if you have the right app. Thankfully, we’ve dug through hundreds of apps out there to give you our take on the best apps in the App Store to help you stay healthy and fit.
More: The best fitness trackers you can buy
Weight Loss
Sometimes, the prospective health benefits of exercise aren’t enough to get you out the door and on the trail. The apps below are designed to give you another compelling reason, whether it’s the opportunity to earn virtual badges, a chance to win actual prizes, or simply the prospect to not get ridiculed.
Nike+ Training Club
Nike’s official app has a library of 30 to 45-minute workouts that are based on your goals and fitness level. Importantly, the app explains how to execute each exercise with how-to videos and even lets you share your accomplishments on social networks.
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iTunes
Carrot Fit: 7 Minute Workout, Step Counter and Weight Tracker ($4)
Carrot is an AI construct that threatens, inspires, ridicules, and bribes you — whatever it takes — to get you moving. It’s a wonderful motivator that features a “7 minutes in hell” workout that will require you to do 30 seconds of 12 punishing exercises, and will berate you if you don’t.
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iTunes
Argus: Calorie Counter & Activity Tracker for Heart Healthy Living
Argus is a neat all-in-one activity tracker that monitors your sleep, heart rate, calories, and more. The app offers challenges to overcome, as well as the option to build your own workout plan. You can even add food you eat by scanning the barcode on the label to track your calories.
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iTunes
Lose It! Weight Loss Program and Calorie Counter
Lose it tracks food intake and fitness activities. Plug in your height, weight, age, and how much weight you are trying to lose (if any at all), and the app constructs a recommended net calorie intake based on how many calories you consume and how many you burn.
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iTunes
MyFitnessPal Calorie Counter and Diet Tracker
Calorie Counter and Diet Tracker by MyFitnessPal boasts a database of more than 5 million foods to sort through, making it easier to track what you eat. It also features a step tracker and a barcode scanner, to make sure you’re able to track everything in your diet. Read more here.
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iTunes
Lifesum: Healthier Living and Better Eating
Lifesum is a weight loss app that works with apps from Withings and RunKeeper to give you an accurate assessment of your daily calorie intake. It even features a built-in barcode scanner that can pull up nutritional data on millions of items.
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iTunes
Fitocracy
Fitocracy is for the competitive. The personal trainer lets you track workouts and encourages you to work toward real-life goals through a leveling system and in-game achievements you can share among your friends and the Fitocracy community.
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iTunes
Pokémon Go
This isn’t a traditional weight loss app, sure, but many hail Pokémon Go as being a great way to get off the couch and into the wild. It might be more suited for ’90s kids who grew up with Pokémon, but regardless of who you are, you’ll find yourself walking all over your city as you try to find new Pokemon.
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iTunes
V-Traning
If you’re looking for a personal trainer, this app will automatically show you all nearby trainers on a map. You can find out about their experience, training style, certifications, going rates, and more. There are user ratings for some trainers, too, and photos of past clients. You can request and book times through the app and have one-on-one interactions. If you’re a trainer, you can also create six-day training and nutrition plans for your clients, and send them from directly within the app. You also have access to a calendar with appointments and reminders for training sessions.
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iTunes
Fitstar Personal Trainer
This app creates a custom workout based on your fitness level. It learns from you as you use it. You choose workouts, and then you tell the app whether the exercises were too easy or too tough for you. The information is used to create a workout routine that fits your level. It will also track your overall fitness, as it’s compatible with the Health app, Fitbit, MyFitnessPal, and Strava. The freemium app is also compatible with Apple Watch, though some features require a subscription to use. Sadly, the latter will run you anywhere between $8 and $40 annually.
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iTunes
Weight Watchers
Weight Watchers has an official app that promises to help you in your journey to a healthier lifestyle, and helps you track and share your weight loss progress with your friends. Since the Weight Watchers program is about tracking points, this app also makes it easy to keep track of your food intake, since everything you eat has a point value. The free app is compatible with the Apple Watch, too, but you’ll need to subscribe to Weight Watchers Online if you want to make the most of it.
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iTunes